The perfect solution

John Howard ... on the millennium baby bandwagon, but now it's a slow train of thought on the Government's part. Photo: Robert Pearce

... will take a little longer. Cosima Marriner examines why a "barbecue stopper" promise to working women has not yet been kept.

This time last year, Pru Goward thought she had devised the perfect solution to the modern woman's dilemma of how to have both a baby and a career.

After months of public consultation, Goward unveiled her proposal for government-funded paid maternity leave for all working women a year ago today. For $213 million, the Government could ensure all women could take 14 weeks off work after the birth of their child and still receive a wage.

Goward's scheme was hailed by many working women as a breakthrough in the struggle to balance work and family. The near-70 per cent of working women who still don't receive any form of paid maternity leave waited expectantly for the Government to adopt Goward's scheme as official policy.

But if those women had been holding their breath, they would have asphyxiated long ago, so slow has the Government been in actually delivering on its long-promised package of work and family measures.

Although John Howard has made what he calls the "barbecue stopper" issue of balancing work and family one of his pet causes, his Government has been trapped in a state of inertia. Its dilemma is twofold - what exactly does it want to do to help families, and just how much money is it really willing to spend doing it?

The Government's predicament is further complicated by internal divisions between the conservatives (who believe women should remain at home raising children) and progressives (who recognise something must be done to help working mothers), and between the savers (Treasury) and the spenders (every other government department).

Whatever the Government decides could have profound consequences for Australia's economic and social future.

Any measure which makes it easier for families to balance work and children could provide a much-needed boost to the fertility rate, which is languishing at 1.75 babies, well below the 2.1 rate needed to replace the existing population. It could also increase the participation of mothers in the workforce. Both these outcomes would go some way to tackling the problem of our ageing population.

An inter-departmental taskforce has been reviewing the Government's work and family policy and developing options for consideration.

The PM's office will not confirm if any option has gone to Cabinet yet, but cites the $80 million worth of new child-care places announced last week as evidence of "the priority the Government places on work and family issues".

The new Family and Community Services Minister, Kay Patterson, makes it clear the matter is in higher hands than hers. "It will be the Prime Minister's decision when he'll respond in detail," she says. "There are various bits that people are working on, but he'll make the decision when it comes together because it does fit across a range of portfolios."

Pru Goward ... fingers crossed.

Notwithstanding the Government's slow progress on work and family, proponents of paid maternity leave are still clinging grimly to the hope a tax-payer-funded scheme for all working women will one day be introduced. "I'm just crossing my fingers for a late Christmas present for Australian women," Goward says.

Labor and the Democrats support publicly funded paid maternity leave, so if Howard doesn't deliver, there is always the possibility a change in government will.

Goward says paid maternity leave is "the perfect solution" for the health and welfare of the working mother and her newborn child. Breastfed, shielded from the bugs caught in child care and under the watchful eye of mum, these babies are less likely to get sick than babies of women who return to work immediately.

And mother and baby cope much better with a return to work after 14 weeks at home together. "Most babies are off night feeds by three months; you're starting to lift your head off the pillow and re-engage with life again."

Goward finds it difficult to rationalise the Government's reluctance to adopt her proposal, given it is relatively inexpensive and would benefit all working women. "If you've been at home with a baby you've adored, why would you not want the same for other women?"

The ACTU president, Sharan Burrow, is more vitriolic, attacking the conservative members of cabinet, such as Tony Abbott, who famously declared paid maternity leave would be introduced "over this Government's dead body".

"What we've seen is John Howard cowed by his more misogynistic cabinet colleagues," Burrow says. "Tony Abbott, Nick Minchin and co are simply opposed to looking after the fundamental economic and social guarantees for working women."

An Adelaide academic, Barbara Pocock, author of The Work/Life Collision, also blames the conservative masculine character of the Government for the stalemate on paid maternity leave. Pocock says the International Labor Organisation recommended early last century that working women be given a paid rest when they have babies.

"Decision-makers don't carry, bear, or recover from having children," Pocock says. "If men had babies we would have had 12 months paid maternity leave a hundred years ago. We're living in a society that doesn't value parental care or recognise a growing proportion of mothers are workers."

But Pocock warns that government-funded paid maternity leave alone will not resolve the work/family issue. "It's a catch-up policy a century too late, but it is not the solution."

Many politicians, academics and business leaders agree that adequate child care and flexible working arrangements are also crucial. More child-care places are needed, and at a lower cost, than those available. Similarly, there needs to be a greater availability, and acceptance, of part time work for mothers.

But so far it would appear that the perfect work-family solution has eluded the Government.

Howard claims he hasn't ruled out paid maternity leave, but he also warns against attributing benefits to a program that does not yet exist.

It has yet to be proven that paid maternity leave actually boosts fertility rates. Some employers are also concerned unions will push for a maternity leave "top up" from employers if a set amount of publicly funded paid maternity leave is introduced in Australia.

The more time that elapses, the less likely it seems the Government will foot the bill for such a scheme.

Instead, the concept of a "universal payment" for all mothers, regardless of whether they work or stay at home, appears to be taking hold in Canberra.

Intended to help with the cost of raising children, the payment would be tied to the child rather than to the parents' income. As the child's entitlement, it would likely be tax-free and non-means tested for all.

Parents could use the money to supplement the family income should the mother decide to stay home with the child, or to assist with the costs of child care should the mother return to work.

The universal payment appeals to the Government because it is choice-neutral - it favours neither the stay-at-home mother nor the working mother. Research shows it would have the benefit of addressing the work-family issue and reversing the decline in the fertility rate.

Advocates of the universal payment proposal suggest $4000-$6000 should be paid annually for each child until the child reaches adulthood. This payment would replace existing government measures, including the problematic baby bonus and the Family Tax Benefit A and B.

However, there is some speculation the Government could retain existing benefits and introduce a one-off lump sum when the baby is born.

Peter McDonald, the head of the demography and sociology program at ANU, calculates a universal payment would cost the Government an extra $2 billion a year. It may also have to provide a supplement for low-income families to ensure they are not worse off under the new system.

McDonald argues that a universal payment will be of particular benefit to middle income families who have seen the family allowance paid to them shrink over the past 25 years. But others question how fair a universal payment would be and argue that working mothers should have priority for any new form of Government assistance.

The Liberal think tank, the Menzies Research Centre, recently came up with a more radical universal payment proposal. A social researcher, Lucy Sullivan, suggests that all mothers be paid $14,000 a year for the first five years of a child's life. France and Norway have already introduced a mother's salary with some success.

Based on the 251,000 babies born last year this proposal would cost the Government at least $3.5 billion a year. It already spends about $3 billion a year on the baby bonus and Family Tax Benefit B.

But does the Government have the fiscal stomach to devote big bucks to work and family measures? It may have a multibillion-dollar surplus to play with before the next election, but not everyone is confident a chunk of those funds will go to mothers.

Faced with a rapidly ageing population placing increased demands on the welfare system, it is clearly in the Government's interests to boost the number of babies being born, and assist those women who wish to return to work after having children.

But some say the Treasury is more interested in spending money on encouraging over 55s to return to work or stay employed longer, rather than helping mothers with young children.

"Persuading 60-year-olds that their retirement - and pension entitlements - are going to be postponed even further may be even harder, and certainly politically more sensitive, than persuading twentysomething women to breed!" he told the recent National Population Summit in Adelaide.

Deeply concerned about the falling fertility rate, Turnbull believes some in Government have yet to appreciate the scale of the problem. Accusing politicians of short-termism, Turnbull is calling on the Government to set some clear family policy goals.

"The Government should be saying we need a higher birth rate, we need to recognise the world of paid work has failed women and we need to adopt policies that are quite overtly pro-marriage," Turnbull says.

"We have to recognise that we are going to have to spend more money to support families."

But he also acknowledges there is no simple policy answer. "I am absolutely emphatic in saying we have to make fertility and families a much higher priority. I am less emphatic as to what is the right policy mix."

The Opposition's family services spokesman, Wayne Swan, derides the Government for being "all talk and no action" when it comes to work and family. And people are heartily sick of waiting for the long promised package.

"It has been a vexed debate [within Government] and one that is way out of proportion to the amount of money involved," says AiGroup's chief, Heather Ridout, who represents industry and employers.

The ACTU is already threatening legal action if the Government doesn't act soon on paid maternity leave. "If we can't get the Government to do anything about this, we will take the issue to the Industrial Relations Commission, because women can't wait forever," Burrow says.

After higher education and defence gobbled up funds in the last budget, the pressure is on the Government to deliver on work and family this time around. There are suggestions Howard could unveil his work and family package early in the new year.

But the more cynical observers expect the PM to save his family-friendly firepower for the election campaign.

As Barry Maley of the Centre for Independent Studies says, despite all the recent debate over Medicare and higher education reforms, work and family is "a much more electorally salient issue". Goward is more succinct: "It can change your vote."